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Monday, June 20, 2011

For my son's fifth birthday a few months ago, I wanted to make s'more cupcakes. (To be honest, this was completely for me and the other moms, since my son wouldn't eat marshmallows that were "aww mewty!" Thus he did not appreciate the joy of s'mores, though he did enjoy lighting a marshmallow on fire while camping this weekend.) Since summer officially begins this week, I thought this was the perfect time to share! What says summer better than s'mores?

I've had a s'more cupcake at our local cupcake shop, but I wasn't impressed. I think it's a texture thing: you just can't replicate the experience of warm melted chocolate, even with chocolate cake. And a crispy-gooey marshmallow is nothing like a boiled meringue frosting.

To start, I made a milk chocolate ganache by bringing 1/4c heavy cream to a boil, then taking that off the heat and adding 1/2c milk chocolate chips. Once the chocolate chips were fully melted, I poured that into my small mixing bowl to cool and refrigerate.

For the cake, I crushed one cellophane package of graham crackers into fine crumbs (about 1 1/4 c crumbs, but I think 1 1/2 c would be better):

Baby helped me dispose of the extra graham cracker pieces.

I added the crumbs an 18.25 oz dry yellow cake mix:

Since we're at a high altitude, I figured this would be okay. And since I didn't feel like getting out a whole 'nother egg carton just for the third egg, I only added two eggs with the other indicated wet ingredients.

I took a page from Cupcake Wars and used an ice cream scoop to fill the cups.

Yes, baking is an exacting science, and an exacting scientist, I am not. Luckily for me, this time it turned out even better than okay: the cake was moist and delicious!

By now the ganache was cool (I started it in the morning and baked the cupcakes in the afternoon). I took it out of the refrigerator and whipped it in my mixer.

Then I scooped the middles out of the cupcakes with a serrated spoon which called itself a "tomato corer":

Holy cupcakes!

And filled with the whipped ganache:

I used a plastic baggie with a corner snipped off for both the ganache and the frosting: marshmallow crème.

I'd show you how I piped it on, but 1.) it took both hands and 2.) it's not impressive.

Now, marshmallow crème will run together after it sits a few minutes, so I recommend only "frosting" a few at a time (at most 6, less if you're going slowly). Once you have a small batch frosted, pop 'em under the broiler:

I like to keep my oven open while I do this because I do tend to burn things under the broiler.

But if you burn these, it's okay! The burnt marshmallow pops off like a lid:

And you can try again.

These actually keep pretty well in airtight containers overnight. The delicious golden brown crunchiness of the marshmallow will dissolve but it keeps the coloring and the shape. But nothing beats a warm, fresh one! (Reheating under the broiler made the frosting crack, but it tasted amazing!)

The first ever Saturday Sister Spotlight was so much fun! I loved getting to know the Three Sisterz better—and I loved seeing how they took up the Saturday Sister Challenge! You can see all their watermelon-inspired crafts in the challenge update here!

And the winner of my ribbon runner from last week, chosen completely at random, I swear, is . . .